Kacchako Week 2019: Breath For Me
by SecretEngima
Summary: Uraraka Ochako has wanted to learn about merfolk for as long as she can remember. Now, thanks to an unexpected scholarship from U.A., she not only has the chance to learn about them, but also work with some of them up close and personal. She just didn't expect that "working with them" would also involving falling in love with one Bakugo Katsuki. Quirkless!AU. Modern Merfolk!AU.


**Hey all! Sooo instead of posting on one of my previously created WIPs (still working on them, promise), I was introduced to the concept of Kacchako Week and, since I do love that ship, I thought I'd give it a try. I also wrote this in a hurry, so I ask that those of you who know anything about scuba diving/gear and/or CPR just ... ignore my glaring ignorance? I just wanted an excuse for fluff guys. Let me have my Anime Logic and my fluff.**

**Also, I'm pretty sure this counts as my entry for Day 0 only, but it might also cover Day 1 because the prompt for that is "summer" and we don't get much more summery than merfolk and beach scenes.**

**Enjoy!**

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There had never been a moment where Ochako was more thrilled than the moment she opened the letter and found out that she had actually won the scholarship. She had worked her soul into the ground for it, prayed and spent sleepless nights over it, but she had never actually expected to get **in**. Not to U.A., the most prestigious school for all aspiring oceanic explorers and aquatic vets and anything that had to do with anything under the waves. There were so many other applicants with more money, more connections, more prior training when all Ochako had was a passion for helping and an all-consuming **love** of the ocean. Or, more specifically, the mysterious humanoid race that lurked within it.

Humanity had known about merfolk and visa versa for centuries, even if most of humanity had passed the knowledge off as legends and wives tales for much of that time. But solid, undeniable contact had been made eighty years before Ochako was born, with the first merman being accidentally caught in a deep sea trawling expedition. The merman had been let go by the surprisingly moral fishermen after some pictures and excited recordings, but after that, everyone had been on fire over the realization that there really **was** another species similar —or equal— to humans in intelligence and power.

Because merfolk **were** intelligent. Dangerously so. They did not speak any known human language and their behavior could be very primal compared to modern sensibilities, but a few cautious contacts and tests revealed that they could learn any writing system and understand any language presented to them. Not just simple words or phrases like apes or cats or other animals, but true language. Written communication or fluent sign language and an ability to comprehend even the most complicated sciences.

The history books, of course, focused on the brief but brutal flares of conflict that had started and died out over the eighty years after formal contact was made. Mostly between humans who wanted to exploit the "creatures of myth" or merfolk who took offense to the submarines that wandered too close to their ancestral territories. But while humanity had technology on their side, the merfolk had magic and an entire **ocean** with which to wield it and neither side had wanted war badly enough to risk mutual destruction of land or sea.

By the time Ochako had been born, there were official treaties in place between the two races —if shaky ones—, designated areas and depths where humans were allowed, where humans and merfolk were allowed, and where only merfolk were allowed. Most of merfolk culture was unknown and bizarre —it was hard to interview people who couldn't speak your language and didn't really like talking to you anyway—, and while there did appear to be countries below the waves, what country meant to merfolk was … different compared to humans. A lot of things were different to humans, and while merfolk demanded recognition as a free and sentient species, in a lot of ways they didn't seem to care when humans treated them more like the ocean creatures that they shared a home with.

Case in point, U.A., the school Ochako had always dreamed of going to. It specialized in oceanic exploration and the care of aquatic life, and half the campus was dedicated to a rehab center for a mind-boggling variety of ocean creatures who had been injured in fights, or in illegal poaching, of any number of things. Students of U.A. not only got to learn from the best minds and most experienced professionals of their dream job, but they frequently got to work with creatures from every ocean there was.

Including merfolk.

U.A. was one of only two known human-run establishments that served as the home of a merfolk pod. U.A.'s pod mostly consisted of mermen and mermaids who had been injured at sea and couldn't really stay out in the open currents —such as the now famous Toshinori, who had badly injured himself saving an ocean liner of humans—, or just those who, for whatever reason, liked humanity rather than only tolerated them. It was one of only two pods that had regular, friendly contact with humans. Researchers and anthropologist all over the world paid fortunes for the privilege of seeing either pod, but for U.A. students, the honor of meeting and interacting with merfolk didn't cost fortunes, all it cost was school tuition and impressively good grades.

Or a once in a lifetime scholarship offer for those specifically looking to train in merfolk care and culture like Ochako.

Who had actually won the thing and spent the next weeks leading up to moving into the U.A. dorms losing her mind with joy and nerves combined.

First day in class their teacher, a boisterously loud culture and music specialist called Yamada Hizashi welcomed them to U.A., lectured them on the basic dos and don'ts of interacting with merfolk and then hauled them all down to a different building entirely for their "homeroom class".

Ochako was baffled as to why their classroom was not in the main school building until Yamada-sensei slammed open the doors to a huge room with a glass wall that only went up halfway, through which Ochako could see a little piece of what had to be a huge underwater aquarium. Laughing at their astonished faces as he herded them to the desks right next to the glass, Yamada-sensei said, "Everybody put your hands up for the other half the class and your **other** homeroom teacher, yeah?"

_Oh._ Thought Ochako faintly as she pressed her hands against the glass, _that's why this class is only half-sized. I haven't met all of them._

She waited breathlessly for someone, anyone, to appear, tried not to bite her lip in anxiety when nothing happened for several minutes. Yamada-sensei sighed after the fifth minute of empty water and, without warning, climbed up the steps to the top of the glass wall, stuck his head underwater, and gave a strange, shrill scream. Pulling his head out of the water and flipping his soaking hair back like everything was perfectly normal, he grinned smugly, "That should do it. Just one more minute and… there he is! Lazy bum."

Ochako gaped as the bright yellow lump half-hidden in a patch of swaying kelp that she'd assumed was a rock unfurled and darkened to inky black and stoney grey. With graceful, twisting limbs, the man who had been playing stone —sleeping?— a moment ago swam over to the edge of the glass and settled next to Yamada-sensei's seat on the other side. Yamada-sensei flipped a switch on his desk and said, "Took you long enough, sleepy head."

The merman flicked a few of his tentacles in a gesture that looked rude, then faced the class with a vaguely dead expression and folded his hands into the sign language for "hello". While the rest of the class whispered and Yamada-sensei cheerfully introduced the merman as "Aizawa Shōta, just call him Aizawa-sensei", Ochako stared at him with wide, wondering eyes.

From the waist up, he looked like a very tired human being. Hooded black eyes and swaying black hair, rippling muscles and scars barely hidden by the grey scarf that seemed to be his only clothing. He even had stubble along his jaw like her father when he forgot to shave. From the waist down, however…

Eight black tentacles, each several feet longer than Ochako was tall, fidgeted idly against the floor of the aquarium. His "hips" were not as wide as she would have thought for having so many limbs, but every twitch of his tentacles made his scales ripple faintly from the muscles beneath.

Ochako had studied a lot of ocean life in her childhood, watched every documentary, seen every youtube clip, gone to every aquatic show she could. She knew what suppressed, predatory power looked like, and Aizawa-sensei was it.

The merman sagged quietly against the glass, already ignoring the human students in favor of holding a half-sign language —on his part—, half Japanese —on Yamada-sensei's part— argument over the entire concept of two homeroom teachers for one class. Or just Aizawa-sensei having a class in general, if Ochako was remembering her sign language lessons correctly.

Yamada-sensei waved his arms, "Just call the rest of the class already so we can get started!"

Aizawa-sensei sighed with an explosion of bubbles, looked over his shoulder and gave a low roll of chirps and clicks Ochako could only hear over the speakers Yamada-sensei had turned on. A few seconds later, the first of their classmates trailed in, each one of them as wondrous and exotic as their new teacher.

Kaminari-kun was an electric eel with bright yellow scales and black stripes, Kirishima-kun was a puffer-shark hybrid of all things, mostly looking like a red shark until he got too excited and his middle puffed out into spikes. Sero-kun was the most normal-looking —for a given definition of normal— as a plain silver-grey dolphin mer with an easy smile. Aoyama-kun was a hyper sort of seadragon with little spots of light that flashed until Aizawa-sensei made him calm down. Ashido-chan was the world's pinkest jellyfish —though where she got the teeny yellow horns peaking out of her pink hair, even she didn't seem to know—.

Shoji-kun and Hagakure-chan were both octopi like their teacher, though only Hagakure seemed able to change color like him. Midoriya-kun was by far the friendliest of them all, even over Ashido-chan or Kirishima-kun, and Ochako might have squealed —just a bit— over his delicate fins and emerald and white koi patterns —he was a native Japanese mer, she'd heard about them but never seen one even on documentaries until now—. Shinsō-kun took some coaxing to settle next to the glass, a sleepy, purple-haired boy with beautiful betta fish fins of a deep, rippling violet.

Last to arrive was Bakugo-kun, a scowl on his face and his dark orange stripes suddenly lighting up like gold lights a random intervals in the argument he seemed to have with his teachers before settling. Ochako held her breath just a bit when he settled right across from her, radiating an aura of bad temper that somehow failed to make him any less gorgeous. His orange stripes settled into a lightless state, contrasting brightly against his black stripes and his spiny fins flexing every few seconds with bad humor. His arms, scaled up to his elbow, were crossed tight over his chest and she could see his claws flexing in time with his fins as he glared at the world at large.

Was it horrible of her to say that she wasn't surprised that their most foul-tempered classmate was a lionfish? If she'd had to guess beforehand what kind of mer would make a bad-tempered classmate, she would have guessed that or shark.

Each one of their non-human classmates had already chosen human names —both first and last, surprisingly— since their real names were untranslatable, and after an awkward introduction to sign language for those of the class who hadn't studied it, each classmate was given a funny little seashell-esque earpiece to wear. It was an experimental translation device they were told, something to possibly smooth communication between both species. Of course, being experimental, errors were to be expected, and all students were encouraged to confirm questionable or insulting translations in sign language or via a teacher before getting upset.

Then, further throwing away the conventional classroom practice, each student was assigned a partner of the other species. Naturally they were all supposed to get to know each other, but the assigned student was the one they would work with on certain projects and the one to whom they were encouraged to ask questions when a teacher wasn't available. Ochako hid her disappointment when she was told by a genuinely apologetic Yamada-sensei that the scholarship had been a last minute idea by the principal, and as such her presence hadn't been expected when planning the partner idea. There wasn't an even number of human classmates and mer classmates, which meant Ochako would have to share Ashido-chan with Yaoyorozu-chan.

That was fine really, Ochako was over the moon just being able to work with **any** merfolk, let alone a classroom of them, and both Ashido-chan —_"just call me Mina, it's prettier!"_— and Yaoyorozu-chan were welcoming despite Ochako's comparative third wheel status.

She tried not to be jealous when Todoroki-kun was assigned Midoriya-kun —_"Y-you can call me, I-Izuku, it's fine"_— as a partner. She had **really** wanted to get to know the koi mer better, and even though they could still talk, it wasn't the same as being partnered up with him.

Everyone agreed within days that they genuinely felt bad for Bakugo-kun though. His partner Mineta-kun was clearly just there to stare at the mermaids and was barely keeping from being expelled after the third time getting caught heading for the girl's locker room before and after water exercises. The mer took to shrieking, loud and **bright** with both his voice and flashing stripes if Mineta-kun wandered too far away, more as a warning to the rest of the class than because he missed Mineta-kun's presence or anything —Ochako was sure she'd seen Yamada-sensei firmly sign that "no, Bakugo-kun couldn't kill and eat Mineta, that was both unsanitary and against the merfolk-human treaties" at one point—.

Two weeks into her first semester at U.A. and Ochako was living a dream. The classes were hard, but they were thorough and fascinating. They covered everything from the types of gear underwater researchers used to ocean rescue to first aid for merfolk and lots more. Mina-chan was a darling to work with, always chipper and eager to test things out with them, never getting insulted when Yaoyorozu-chan or Ochako had to double check something she said using sign language because the translator had turned it into a swear word again by accident.

Today everyone was at a separate study room —that had a ground pool in it rather than a glass wall for the mer students so they could better interact with their partners—, working on a oceanic subject of their choosing. Ochako and her partners hadn't settled on a topic yet, and Ochako had briefly left to go get more paper after Mina-chan had accidentally swept half their stash into the water in her excitement.

She startled to a stop when there was a crash and loud laughter that cut off sharply. A minute or so later, Mineta-kun slammed open the door to his study room and ran past, not even bothering to **look** at her, let alone try to touch her. From inside the room, Ochako heard a raspy shriek, far harsher than usual —not muffled by glass, but also changed by something else what was that?—. Worried, Ochako hesitated for a moment there in the hallway, then dared to peak inside when she thought she heard something wet hitting the ground repeatedly.

She poked her head inside and froze.

Bakugo-kun thrashed on the tiles of the human half of the study room, mouth open in a silent shriek, gills heaving as he tried to get out from under the shelf that had tipped over on top of his tail, pinning him on his back. For a moment she didn't understand why his eyes were wild with panic. True the shelf had to be heavy and painful, but Mina-chan and the other students had hauled themselves up onto the land plenty of times during classes to better interact with their human classmates. It wasn't like he couldn't … breathe…

_Bakugo-kun never comes out of the water._ Not once. He would raise his head above the water level, sometimes even his shoulders, but she had **never** seen him slide up onto land, or even raise himself more than halfway up his gills. She had thought it was because he was antisocial and didn't want to put out the effort, but staring at him now, thrashing desperately against the shelf and lips slowly turning blue she realized-.

Bakugo-kun couldn't breathe above water.

He was **suffocating in front of her**.

Her feet unstuck and she ran into the room, "Bakugo-kun!" Red eyes locked onto her, his mouth moving but no sound coming out as his gills spasmed and his webbed hands desperately clawed the tile. Ochako struggled with the shelf, realized with three tugs that there was no way she'd be able to lift it. She thought about running for help, but she'd seen most of the other study rooms were empty —the others had already picked projects and moved to one of the outdoor aquariums probably—. Yaoyorozu-chan and Mina-chan were at the end of the hall and only Yaoyorozu-chan would be able to help and she wouldn't be strong enough either-.

Bakugo-kun managed a rolling click that sounded like a sob next to her and Ochako frantically dug for her phone. There was a school app for human students, a panic button for if something went wrong and they were trapped or injured underwater and Ochako wasn't the one who needed help but surely someone would come running if she pressed it anyway. The button lit up red as she slammed her thumb on it and she tossed her phone onto the floor without a thought as she sank to her knees next to Bakugo-kun, "Bakugo-kun! Bakugo-kun, I called for help, someone will be here soon just hold on-."

Red eyes stared at her without recognition, his struggles were getting weaker and his lips were definitely on the blue side now. He was going to suffocate before anyone came —had Mineta-kun gone for help? Shouldn't someone have come by now if that was the case?— and Ochako didn't know what to do to help a classmate who couldn't breathe on land-.

_I can breathe on land._

_I can breathe._

_Breathe for him._

Ochako scrambled forward, held his face with her shaking hands as she took a deep breath —like performing CPR but not but hopefully close enough that it worked-_please-work-please-work-don't-die_—, leaned over him and covered his open mouth with hers. Clawed fingers wrapped around her biceps, sharp and painful and wild, like he was going to try to throw her off until Ochako pushed her air out and into his mouth —_please be able to breathe through the mouth I can't use this on your gills, please breathe, let me breathe-for-you_—.

She could feel his chest expand and the claws tearing at her arms went still. Ochako pushed every ounce of air out of her lungs that she could, then sat up and gasped for more. Bakugo-kun was staring at her, mouth open and eyes wide and trickling with silent tears of desperation and disbelief. Ochako squeezed his shoulders, "It's okay-" she hoped the translation device was still working because she didn't have hands to sign this, "You're going to be okay. Help is coming. Just exhale, and I'll take care of the rest okay?"

He swallowed fearfully, eyes flicking around the room and keeping a stubborn hold of the breath she'd given him, then squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. She could feel him exhale through his gills, felt his diaphragm twitch with the need for more air before she took a deep breath and passed it on to him.

She didn't know how long they kept going like that. Bakugo-kun exhaling with his gills and trusting Ochako to push new air into his mouth with hers. She didn't know why he could take her air through his mouth but not breathe like that on his own. She didn't know if they kept up the cycle for minutes or hours —probably minutes, but it felt like days really— until Yamada-sensei and a medical team ran inside and stared at the scene before them.

Ochako finished pushing the latest round of air into Bakugo-kun's lungs before she sat up and breathlessly stammered out what she knew of the situation, then kept breathing for Bakugo-kun as Yamada-sensei and the medics —who'd brought human oxygen masks and not merfolk ones— hauled the bookshelf off Bakugo-kun's tail. One last breath for him to hold and Yamada-sensei picked Bakugo-kun up bridal style and staggered to the water that Aizawa-sensei was climbing frantically out of, tentacles reaching to support Yamada-sensei's hold, then transfer it altogether as he slid back into the water with his shaking student.

As soon as he was submerged up to his shoulders, Bakugo-kun heaved, gasping in relief with his gills, mouth opening and closing uselessly as he shakily rested his head on Aizawa-sensei's shoulder. Her last sight of him before Aizawa-sensei gently pulled Bakugo-kun all the way under was his red eyes locking with hers, gratitude shining in them like fire.

Ochako sat there on the floor for a while, not really listening to Yamada-sensei as he wrapped a shock blanket around her shoulders and praised her quick thinking. She ended up curled into his shoulder sobbing from fear and relief —she'd done it Bakugo-kun wasn't _dying-dead-gone_ right before her eyes she'd done it and that was terrifying she never wanted to do it again—.

She later found out that it was all a prank gone wrong. She as never told all the details, but apparently Mineta-kun had been feeling petty over all the times Bakugo-kun had blow the whistle on his girl stalking and had somehow lured him —made him mad enough?— to leap out of the water. But Bakugo-kun had overshot his intended landing back into the water and instead hit the tiles of the floor and slid all the way to the bookshelf, knocking it over onto himself in the process. Mineta-kun had laughed until he realized Bakugo-kun was genuinely suffocating, then had panicked and run away.

He hadn't been going to get help.

Mineta-kun was expelled from U.A. for endangering another student on top of all his stalker-ish behavior, and Ochako was assigned as Bakugo-kun's new partner.

It took several days for Bakugo-kun to return to the class, and even then he lurked well below the waterline, not daring to come close to the surface. His mer classmates clustered around him, heedless of his bad temper, and watching them comfort him with cuddles and play nips and cheek nuzzles would have been fascinating if it wasn't for the circumstances that led to it. Yamada-sensei and Aizawa-sensei pulled her aside after her assignment to Bakugo-kun and gently explained what had happened.

While merfolk could breathe in open air or in water, that was only after they hit a certain age. When they were really, really young, merfolk couldn't control the transition from water to air. Normally that wasn't a problem. Pods were incredibly protective of their young and usually made sure they never went too close to the surface without supervision until they were old enough to learn air breathing. But when Bakugo-kun had been very young, just after he had begun his training in air breathing, he'd gotten caught in the fishing net of some fishermen who hadn't realized they were near pod waters. The fear and the restrictive net had made him forget how to air breathe, and he'd almost died before the fishermen managed to untangle the net and throw him back into the water.

After that … Bakugo-kun **was** capable of air breathing. Physically there was nothing stopping him. But some part of his mind didn't seem to be able to recognize it. Anytime his gills were completely above water, he panicked and forgot how to transition and so ended up reliving the trauma of his suffocation all over again. His pod had ended up coming to U.A. in the hopes that he could get help overcoming that issue, as well as meet some humans he could associate positively with rather than the fishermen in his memory that he hated for their accidental harm.

His private rehab sessions had been going well, he'd been able to air breathe so long as his gills were still partially submerged, but Mineta-kun's prank had taken him too far out of his comfort zone.

Ochako had nodded to everything the teachers said, and then proceeded to make sure that any room she was in with Bakugo-kun for study or talking or … anything always had deep water. Usually the glass walled ones, even though that made it harder to do certain projects. After a few days of putting up with a very snarly Bakugo-kun —she didn't blame him, he'd been terrified and almost died because of a human classmate, even if she'd been the one to help him—, his temper seemed to settle and he actually began to interact with her.

They began hanging out in one of the open air pools that had a slanted floor outside of classes. Ochako would sit with her legs dangling in the water while Bakugo-kun lay on his stomach with his gills half-submerged and practiced his air breathing, able to slide effortlessly into the deeper waters whenever he began feeling uncomfortable. They did just about anything out there. From studying their textbooks to talking about their cultures —Ochako brought her handheld game a few times and accidentally got him hooked on the Breath of the Wild— to practicing understanding each other's language without the translators —Bakugo-kun's voice was beautiful in a rumbly, bone-deep power sort of way—.

Bakugo-kun was stubborn, and foul-mouthed —he somehow managed to learn to pronounce a single human word despite it being supposedly biologically impossible, that word was f*ck— and kinda grumpy, but he was also smart and helpful and patient with her bumbling efforts to learn merlish and his jokes were funny and his smile was as breathtaking as his eye color and glittering scales and-.

And one day Ochako watched Bakugo-kun laugh loudly over something funny she'd said and realized that she was more than a little in love with him.

Oh no.

Ochako did her best to hide her internal crisis —she hadn't meant to fall in love with Bakugo-kun and she'd had enough crushes to know this was either the biggest one ever or something more serious—. Pretended not to notice the odd looks he suddenly sent her or the way he looked baffled —hurt— when she insisted on sitting at the table farthest from the aquarium half of the cafeteria over lunch for the next two days so that she could try to handle her panicking and come up with a "I Have a Crush/Am In Love With A Member Of A Different Species Now What?" plan —she made an excuse of some kind, but she didn't think he bought it—.

Her third day sitting in her private corner table and she was startled by Jirō-chan slapping her tray down on the table and sliding into the seat across from her, "So. You too, huh?"

Ochako blinked, "Jirō-chan? I-I don't know what you mean-."

Jirō-chan pointed her chopsticks authoritatively at Ochako, "You went and fell in love with your merman class partner too, and now you're freaking out about it."

Ochako looked around in alarm, afraid of a classmate overhearing. Everyone else was busy chatting at other tables though, so their privacy was undisturbed. Ochako leaned closer to Jirō-chan anyway, "You mean you fell for Kaminari-kun…?"

Jirō-chan ducked her head and tugged at one of her funky earphone jack earrings, "Yeah. I didn't mean to. He's just … he's a dork, and he's kinda dumb and he's only here because he's in rehab for his electrical charge issues but-." Jirō-chan hid her face in her hands, then looked up, "But I love him. He's sweet and he loves my compositions even if they aren't good and laughs at my jokes and honestly? I don't think he cares that we're two different species."

Ochako gasped, "Wait, you and him are dating?"

Jirō-chan held a finger to her lips and shushed her, "Keep it down. I'm pretty sure the pod half of our class has already guessed but I don't want to get mobbed by the human half. Anyway, I'm not here about that. I'm here about you and Bakugo-kun."

Now it was Ochako's turn to hide her face in her hands, "I don't know…"

Jirō-chan pried Ochako's hands away, "Hey, don't get upset, alright? First step is to not get upset. I went into denial too and Denki could smell that. He thought I was mad at him for something. If you do this too long, Bakugo-kun will think the same about you."

"So what do I do?"

Jirō-chan shrugged, "Ask him out."

Ochako made a protesting noise and Jirō-chan rolled her eyes, "Look. There's no laws against it, you like him, he actually seems to like you enough to spend time with you, and he's hot. Give him a present and ask him out. See what happens."

Ochako blinked, not sure how to handle a classmate encouraging her crush on a merman, "…A present?"

"It's one of their traditions, apparently. You give something of yours that you like to indicate that you like them more. Or something." Jirō-chan held up her wrist so show a seashell bracelet, "Denki's had this for years apparently. After we worked out that I wasn't mad at him, he gave it to me." She lowered her hand and shrugged, "Look, I won't tell anyone if this makes you uncomfortable, but … maybe give it a shot, yeah? Besides," Her grin turned mischievous, "How many other girls in the world can say they've met and asked out a merman in real life?"

Without waiting for an answer, Jirō-chan picked up her tray and wandered off to go sit at a table with a waterside to it. Kaminari-kun, already lounging in the low water by the table, waved when he saw Ochako staring and then turned his attention to Jirō-chan, a massive —and adorable— grin on his face.

Ochako wrestled with Jirō-chan's advice, and while she didn't go up and declare her love for Bakugo-kun or anything, she did stop avoiding him at lunch and stubbornly refused to let her emotions stop her from being the boy's friend —she'd work on the whole "admit her feelings" thing later. Maybe—.

One particularly warm day, Yamada-sensei gleefully announced that they had earned a trip to the ocean for some scuba practice —or just open ocean swimming practice for the mer classmates—. Everyone was bundled into busses with special water tanks equipped in place of half the seats, and Ochako temporarily forgot all about her awkward feelings for Bakugo-kun in favor of the sheer excitement of being able to slip on scuba gear and go exploring underwater in the actual ocean rather than U.A.'s luxurious aquariums.

Everyone was sternly lectured to remain in a buddy system, pairing one scuba diver with one mer while the teachers oversaw everything —Aizawa-sensei proved himself the mother hen yet again by constantly checking on the human students' gear and trailing behind Yamada-sensei with a scowl, Toshinori-sensei just clicked with soft laughter as he lounged in the shallows—.

Ochako explored every nook and cranny she could, and the genuine grin on Bakugo-kun's face as he began guiding her from spot to spot made her stomach swoop like it was full of tiny fish. She couldn't really talk underwater —the translators didn't have a radio function, so they only translated merlish underwater— and sign language was sluggish, but they didn't really need either. Bakugo-kun was happy showing her around the area of ocean the school had cleared out for them and Ochako wasn't sure if she was more excited by all the fish she got to see up close and personal or the honest-to-goodness grin that seemed to have taken permanent residence on Bakugo-kun's usually scowling face.

They were having so much fun exploring that neither of them noticed that they were getting farther and farther away from the group. Neither of them noticed that the teachers weren't letting them go so much as hadn't spotted them, too busy breaking up a play scuffle between the some of the boys to notice when Bakugo-kun spotted some underwater caves and led her inside to see what they could find.

The caves were fascinating and dark, lit only by the soft yellow glow of Bakugo-kun's stripes, guided only by the flash of his tail in the dark as they wandered and oohed and awed over the tiny fish and creeping things they found inside.

All it took was a single moment of distraction somewhere in those tunnels for it all to go wrong. A single, sharp outcrop of rock no thicker than her thumb that she didn't see in the shadows as she turned to look at something else. An edge she didn't register until she felt something catch and tug on the air tube between her tank and her oxygen mask and suddenly her air was replaced with water. In the space of seconds, the wondrous, dark world of the ocean caves turned to a horror story. Ripping the useless mask from her face in panic —it was full of water already how-how-how—, she flailed in the dim light for Bakugo-kun. Her gloved hands clamped onto his fins and he turned around from where he had been examining something else. For a moment, he stared at her without comprehension, then his eyes flickered down from the mask in her hand to the air bubbles escaping her broken tube and his expression morphed into one of panic.

Ochako clamped her hands over her mouth, struggling to think and keep what air was left in her lungs but it was already tainted by the water that had rushed in through her mask before she realized the danger and she was **trapped** here in a cave with no time to swim to the surface and she couldn't breathe-couldn't-breathe-_I-can't-_**_breathe_**_-._

Claws hands that were hotter than anyone would have expected to look at them yanked her hands from her face and what air was left in her mouth exploded out in a rush of bubbles and panicked protest because she couldn't breathe why had he made her swallow more water-?

The claws hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close. Lips slapped overtop her mouth, so hard and desperate she could feel needle-like teeth scraping against her lips. The unwelcome seawater in her mouth was swallowed away and a moment later air rushed in to replace it. Ochako swallowed the air desperately, mind oscillating between relief and confusion and the panic that had ruled her moments before. After a long pause, Ochako dared to exhale through her nose, a rush of bubbles that was replaced immediately by the mouth locked over hers.

Exhale. Swallow the air provided. Exhale. Take in the new oxygen that came without hesitation.

Finally, the hands on her shoulders eased, sensing that her panic was fading. One of the hands slid her jaw shut so that she didn't accidentally swallow water when the mouth over hers pulled away. In the soft light of his glowing stripes, Bakugo-kun's eyes gleamed with determination as he carefully leaned forward to rub his cheek against hers in a gesture she'd seen the pod do a lot when one of them was distressed. Sing-song words like ocean tides and far off thunder rumbled right by her ear and a moment later the translator whispered, soft and fragile, _"It's okay. Trust me."_

He pressed his forehead against her goggles, took a deep breath with his gills and passed it to her before he pulled back and whispered, _"You breathed for me. __Let _**_me_**_ breathe for _**_you_**_."_

In the dark of the cave that could have easily been her death, a useless oxygen tank on her back and her only hope the classmate in front of her, Ochako had no reason to stop being scared. But despite the shaking in her hands and the quivering of her nerves…

She wasn't afraid anymore.

She nodded to Bakugo-kun, clumsy gloved fingers signing, _"I trust you."_

He smiled, tight and worried, carefully breathed for her one more time before taking one of her hands in his and pulling her through the tunnels for the exit. Every few turns he stopped without prompting, letting her exhale in a blow of bubbles before pulling her close and giving her more. The tunnels seemed a lot longer and more confusing on the way out than they had on the way in, but Bakugo-kun held her hands tight and never waited for her to ask for air.

The inside of Ochako's goggles blurred with tears of relief when sunlight finally filtered through the water to them and they rounded the last corner of the cave. Bakugo-kun pressed his mouth over hers, breathed one last time, then wrapped his arms around her powered to the surface like a jet. Ochako gasped gratefully the moment they broke the surface, barely heard their teachers and classmates surfacing to see what was wrong as she greedily drank in the salty air. Bakugo-kun hauled her to the beach, sliding up the sand as far as he dared before letting her go. Ochako yanked her goggles off and tilted her face toward the sun in relief, didn't bother to pay attention as Bakugo-kun shakily explained to an aggressively fussing Aizawa-sensei what had happened.

One hefty lecture about wandering off to dangerous sea caves —or wandering off in general— and Ochako was officially grounded to the beach by the teachers. The only reason the trip wasn't canceled altogether was her begging on behalf of the other students —she was fine, she hadn't gotten hurt, Bakugo-kun had taken care of her, there was no need to ruin everyone else's day—.

The others made a point to stay much closer to the beach even after they were allowed back in the water, and after a few minutes of lying gratefully on the sand in her wetsuit, Ochako realized that someone was still there —someone other than Yamada-sensei and Toshinori-sensei a few yards away in the shallows, arguing with Aizawa-sensei over something—. She opened her eyes and found herself locking gazes with worried red. Ochako smiled, "I'm okay, Bakugo-kun, I promise. You saved me."

He didn't look convinced and, before she could think better of it, Ochako sat up and carefully rubbed her nose against his cheek like she'd seen the other pod members do to each other in reassurance. Bakugo-kun froze at her touch, then purred, soft and shy, and nuzzled her back. She blinked in surprise at the return gesture, saw him look away with a faint blush and a gruff, _"You did the same for me."_

Oh. Oh she had, hadn't she?

She smiled, "Then I guess we're even."

He scowled and muttered something so low the translator didn't catch it, then glanced at her through his lashes with red-tinted cheeks.

Maybe it was the close call under the water, maybe it was just her deciding to be brave, but Ochako suddenly stood up with a firm, "Wait here, I'll be right back," and jogged back to the busses before he could protest. Rummaging through her bags, Ochako pulled out her tiny case of earrings, yanked out her favorite pair, and then marched back down to the beach before her sanity could catch up with her. Bakugo-kun watched with a wrinkled forehead, as high up the beach as he dared go with his air breathing issues, and Ochako had no problems wading deeper into the water with him following until they could both face each other upright and eye level.

He clicked out the mer translation of her name in confusion, froze when she held out her favorite earrings —little metal dream catchers, a gift from her traveling cousin when she was eight, the ones Bakugo-kun **knew** were her favorites—. He looked from the gift to her face and back, swallowed hard, _"Do you-? I mean-. I don't think-."_

"I know what I'm doing," Ochako said firmly, "Jirō-chan said this is what you do when you … like … someone…" her own face was heating up and her courage faltered. She looked down at the water lapping her chest, "I mean … you don't have to take them if you don't want. But I just thought-. I really like you, and you saved my life and I know I already saved yours before but I thought maybe-."

Gentle claws plucked the earrings from her hands and she looked up in time to see him pull out his shark tooth ones and slide the tiny dream catchers into his ears in their place. His face was bright red and his stripes were flashing sporadically but the grin was back and this time…

This time when his lips pressed against hers it wasn't a desperate, life-saving gesture on either of their parts. It was her first kiss.


End file.
